and families gathered around tables for a hearty meal of venison stew or schnitzel. What she wouldn’t give to be down there and not here. Far in the distance, clouds darkened. The air ripened with moisture.
“Don’t know why they feel the need to keep bringing that up.” Ellie jammed a cigarette between her lips and inhaled deeply. “Eric promised he’d never mention it again. Guess he can’t refuse the Führer. Have you ever seen such eyes?”
Kat stretched her foot out, rotating it around. One by excruciating one, her muscles relaxed from the cramped tension they’d curled into since arriving at the Berghof. “They are rather intense. Barrett’s holding up well, though.”
“I can imagine him standing before Death and not ruffling.”
Isn’t that what he’s doing now? He lived and breathed danger with the Resistance, each second possibly his last, but never once did he back down from the mission. She was no expert in men, but she’d met enough to know a lesser man would have buckled by now.
As Hitler prattled on, Barrett’s gaze drifted to her. One eye slid down for a wink. Warmth ignited in her pulse. “Cheeky lad.”
Ellie picked a piece of tar from her tongue. “Cheeky and cuts a nice figure in the water. All that practice from the lochs in Scotland certainly paid off this afternoon. I think we’ll have to go swimming again before we leave just so we can watch him do laps.”
“Why must your mind always wander there?”
“Because it’s the most interesting pastime I can think of.”
Kat bumped her hip into Ellie’s. Ash tumbled from the cigarette onto the terrace. “Only a pastime?”
“Okay, all the time.” Ellie bumped her back and giggled. Eva swung around and clicked her camera in their direction before returning to the men. “What do you make of her?”
“Strange duck. Relative? Houseguest, maybe?” Eva circled around the table, careful to get every angle with all the men. After each click, her eyes flitted up to Hitler as if asking for permission to continue. He ignored her. “And yet there’s something oddly familiar . . . as if she’s constantly waiting for his approval, much like a—Oh, no. No, that can’t be it.”
“Please don’t say lover. Oh, Kat, why would you say that?” Ellie’s face scrunched with disgust. “That man as a lover is the last thing I want to think about.”
Kat threw her hands up in defense. “You said it, not me.”
“But that’s what your observation jumped to, isn’t it?” Ellie exhaled a puff of smoke on a groan. “He’s terrifying at the best of times. No woman could possibly want an attachment with him.”
With the slicked-back hair, a voice that was two notches too loud, and that patch of hair on his lip, he looked like an angry otter ready to chew off the nearest person’s face at any second. Yet somehow the crazed man had been elected chancellor of Germany with flying colors. Revulsion slithered down Kat’s back. “Power is appealing to some.”
“Please stop.”
“Look at how his speeches whip crowds into a frenzy, how men sign up in droves to fight for him, how women push their babies in front of him for a pat on the head.”
Ellie flipped a hand. “Fine. I admit that power is intoxicating, but at the end of the day you want to snuggle next to a man who doesn’t make your skin crawl.”
“Are you saying the Führer makes your skin crawl?”
“Doesn’t he yours?”
“Of course.”
“Of course. Then what are we still doing here?”
Kat nodded her head in Eric’s direction. “I believe your gentleman is the only one who can answer that.”
Sighing, Ellie picked more tar off her tongue. “He thinks I make a good publicity image.”
The revulsion flared to anger. “You mean he wants to use you to promote Nazi ideas to a wider circle? Say, England?” At her sister’s glum nod, Kat wrapped her arm around Ellie’s waist and turned them to the deep-green mountains of Austria. “You don’t have to go along with it.”
“He’s difficult to say no to. You see the kind of pressure he’s under. How can any person say no to men like them?”
“Ellie, Eric wears the uniform, not you. You have no obligation to be here. We can leave tonight if you like. Go to those Switzerland spas I was telling you about. Wouldn’t it be nice, just you and me, away from these egotistical boys?”
“Even Barrett?”
Pain notched in Kat’s chest. “Yes, even him.”
“You’d miss him too much, just like I would Eric. He’s pushy, I